Congress Leaves Work Unfinished

The Senate has joined the House in taking the annual congressional recess through Labor Day, with both chambers leaving a long list of unfinished legislation affecting federal employees to be dealt with in the autumn. At the top of that list is the Transportation-Treasury spending bill for the fiscal year beginning October 1, which has become the vehicle for the January 2004 federal pay raise. The House likely will vote soon after reconvening on that bill, which provides for a 4.1 percent raise in the name of maintaining parity with uniformed military personnel. The Senate has not begun drafting its version of the bill, however, and the White House can make another raise recommendation by the end of August that could continue to advocate the administration’s original proposal for 2 percent for federal workers plus a $500 million fund-which would work out to about a half-percentage point of pay, if divided up equally-to reward good performers. The House bill would set up that fund, but would put just $2.5 million into it, effectively just seed money to get the program into law.